installing c api (md5)

Question

I have learned from my previous question that I need to install a C API to get an md5 function. However the file I have got from here does not have a readme.

I am a noob, I know I'm a noob, and I know loads of people will love to tell me how silly my question is, but I have googled on how to install C libraries, but most of the results turn up pages for C# and C++. How do I install the library, and importantly, without any documentation, how do I know how to use it?

Answer 1

In this very case you can just type make on the command line, and it will automatically compile. See this about the concept: http://tldp.org/LDP/LG/current/smith.html

If there's no documentation, you'll have to figure out yourself how the library works. By the way, in this specific case, it won't be horribly difficult. Calculating an MD5 checksum is a very specific and very narrow task, so most likely all you will have to do is something like

void *data = // whatever
const char *md5_checksum = calculate_md5(data, length_of_data);

(pseudocode). Otherwise you can have a look at the header files of the library; a well-written library is self-documented, and the comments in the header file make it obvious to use.